Tuesday, 9 November 2010

You'll likely have seen the news yesterday that five Church of England bishops are to resign and convert to Catholicism, on account of what one of the five, Bishop Newton, describes as the Church of England "more lax attitude towards moral issues: the whole question of blessing gay marriage ... abortion, and life and death issues".

It is, of course, a further sign of the extent to which the Anglican communion is tearing itself apart over issues like gay marriage and female clergy, as well as the suitability of the Catholic Church for those opposed to liberalising reforms (the bishops are taking the Vatican up on an offer it made to disaffected Anglicans last year).

But what really struck me about the story was the bizarre coffee-based simile used by one of the defectors, Bishop Burnham, to describe his soon-to-be-former employer:

“The Church of England has decided that it can make its own mind up about what it can do. There are signs it is forgetting and losing a sense of where it came from. If Costa Coffee, every time you went to a branch, did something different and you didn’t know what the product was, they would go out of business. We have got to the stage now in the Church of England where there are so many different products that you don’t know what you’re going to get.”

I don't know about you, but I absolutely insist upon the proscription of gay marriage with my mid-morning espresso...

You'll likely have seen the news yesterday that five Church of England bishops are to resign and convert to Catholicism, on account of what one of the five, Bishop Newton, describes as the Church of England "more lax attitude towards moral issues: the whole question of blessing gay marriage ... abortion, and life and death issues".

It is, of course, a further sign of the extent to which the Anglican communion is tearing itself apart over issues like gay marriage and female clergy, as well as the suitability of the Catholic Church for those opposed to liberalising reforms (the bishops are taking the Vatican up on an offer it made to disaffected Anglicans last year).

But what really struck me about the story was the bizarre coffee-based simile used by one of the defectors, Bishop Burnham, to describe his soon-to-be-former employer:

“The Church of England has decided that it can make its own mind up about what it can do. There are signs it is forgetting and losing a sense of where it came from. If Costa Coffee, every time you went to a branch, did something different and you didn’t know what the product was, they would go out of business. We have got to the stage now in the Church of England where there are so many different products that you don’t know what you’re going to get.”

I don't know about you, but I absolutely insist upon the proscription of gay marriage with my mid-morning espresso...